Information

The Akron Series in Poetry was founded to bring to the public writers who speak in original and compelling voices. Each year, The University of Akron Press offers the Akron Poetry Prize, a competition open to all poets writing in English. The winning poet receives $1,500 and publication of his or her book. The final selection will be made by a nationally prominent poet. The final judge for 2015 is Carmen Giménez Smith. Other manuscripts may also be considered for publication in the series.

Guidelines for Submission

1. Manuscripts must be a total length of at least 48 pages and no longer than 90 pages. Individual poems may have appeared in chapbooks or literary magazines, but we are unable to consider collections that have been previously published as a full-length volume. Translations are not eligible.

2. Manuscripts must include a cover page (with author's name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and manuscript title), a title page (with no identifying information), and an acknowledgments page listing poems previously published in periodicals (if applicable). Please do not submit manuscripts that have the author's name on each page. Manuscripts will go to the final judge blind.

3.Manuscripts will be accepted via Submittable between April 15 and June 15 of each year. The link to The University of Akron Press Submittable page will be posted here on April 15. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but The University of Akron Press must be notified immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.

4. An entry fee of $25 is required for each manuscript submission, and will be collected through Submittable.

6. Intimate friends, relatives, current and former students of the final judge (students in an academic, degree-conferring program or its equivalent) and current faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the University of Akron or the Northeast Ohio MFA Program (NEOMFA) are not eligible to enter the Akron Poetry Prize competition.

2015 Final Judge

Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds, four poetry collections—Milk and Filth, Goodbye, Flicker, The City She Was, and Odalisque in Pieces. Milk and Filth was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. She is the recipient of a 2011 American Book Award, the 2011 Juniper Prize for Poetry, and a 2011–2012 fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Howard Foundation. She recently co-edited the anthology Angels of the Americplyse: New Latin@ Writing (Counterpath, 2014). A CantoMundo Fellow and formerly a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she is the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Puerto del Sol and the publisher of Noemi Press.

2014 Winner

Philip Metres, Pictures at an Exhibition: A Petersburg Album

The University of Akron Press is pleased to announce that it will publish the poetry manuscript The Veronica Maneuver by Jennifer Moore of Defiance, Ohio, as the Editor’s Choice selection from the 2014 Akron Poetry Prize competition.